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Government repression censored
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2005-48
Monday December 12^th – Sunday December 18^th 2005

DURING the week the government media censored government’s continuing persecution of individuals and organisations it considered a threat to "national interests".

News of the arrest and detention of workers of the private radio station, Voice of the People (VOP), and National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) activists were all ignored by the government media.

Neither did they report on the confiscation of the passport belonging to Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) leader Raymond Majongwe, nor reported the international indignation triggered by this and the earlier seizure of travel documents belonging to others government considers to be acting against its interests.

This crackdown was only covered in the private media.

Instead, the government media’s 20 related stories (ZBH, 14 and government papers, six) generally cheered the authorities’ onslaught against what they perceived to be the country’s enemies on the basis of recent ZANU PF conference resolutions, which pledged action against "Western sponsored" NGOs, the private media, the opposition MDC, and the West and its allies, among other "detractors", as working against "national interests".

The resolutions ranged from calls to ban any more visits from United Nations’ envoys, introducing National Youth Service education for trainee journalists, to the purging of NGOs and the dismantling of the MDC.

But rather than investigate these allegations for their authenticity, these media merely used the ruling party’s resolutions as a platform to amplify the authorities’ vilification of those they perceived to be ‘enemies’ of the State. Central targets were UN investigators Anna Tibaijuka and Jan Egeland, who were accused of biased assessments of government’s Operation Murambatsvina.

ZBH led the way, devoting nine of its 14 stories to delivering puerile attempts to discredit the two, condemning them as agents of British and American neo-colonialism without substantiating these claims (ZTV 12/12; 6pm; 8pm & 13/12; 7am and SFM 12/12; 8pm).

To try to give credence to its attacks, the national broadcaster called on government apologists and selected individuals all expressing their displeasure with the UN pair. ZTV (12/12, 6pm) quoted Media and Information Commission boss Tafataona Mahoso advising UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, against allowing his organisation to be "used as a an extension of British and US foreign policy" against Zimbabwe.

The Sunday Mail (18/12) also caustically protested against Egeland’s critical observations on Murambatsvina but provided very little justification for its stance.

So did Mahoso’s column, carried in the same paper, which, apart from its simplistic attacks on Egeland and Tibaijuka, also took criticised Zimbabwe’s US ambassador Christopher Dell for his candid criticism of government. While Mahoso accused Dell of being a "provocateur rather than a diplomat", he did not provide compelling evidence to back his vitriolic attack on the diplomat.

Earlier, The Herald (16/12), reported the Information Ministry’s Principal Press Officer (security), Retired Major Anywhere Mutambudzi, loosely defending government’s intolerance of criticism at a Grain Marketing Board (GMB) media reception, saying the world over, "press freedom ends where national interest begins". He did not elaborate on the line that separates the two, nor was he asked.

A good illustration of the extent to which state institutions have been suborned by the government’s agenda was provided by ZTV (12/12; 6pm, 8pm), which passively reported a warning from Major-General Martin Chedondo threatening members of the armed forces against supporting the MDC at a parade in Gweru. The station quoted him declaring that the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) had no place for supporters of the opposition party, saying "the army must shun the MDC as its leader Morgan Tsvangirai is the state’s number one enemy who brought about hardships Zimbabweans are experiencing through his lobbying for sanctions."

But instead of questioning this blatant politicisation of the army with statements that clearly violated the army’s cardinal constitutional principle of being apolitical – ZTV seemed to celebrate his comments, describing them as "a no-holds barred speech" delivered in "no uncertain terms."

The government media’s lopsided coverage of the subject was not clearly reflected as illustrated by ZBH in Fig 1.

Fig. 1 Voice distribution on ZBH

Although the national broadcaster quoted more voices of ordinary people, they, like the rest of the voices, were employed solely to justify government’s persecution of what they perceived as its enemies.

The private media interpreted government’s clampdown on its opponents differently in most of the 32 stories they carried on the topic, 21 of which were published by the newspapers and the remaining 11 on Studio 7. They traced the renewed attacks on individuals and organisations within civil society (and at the UN) to the ZANU PF conference, and exposed the pervasiveness of the crackdown as well as the extent to which the purge had attracted widespread condemnation.

For example, unlike the government media, the private media interpreted government’s repressive actions to be serious human rights violations. They carried six stories on the rights abuses and recorded five new incidents. Four of the stories were carried by Studio 7 (14/12 & 15) while The Daily Mirror on Saturday (17/12) and The Standard (18/12) carried one apiece.

These included government’s seizure of Majongwe’s passport and the arrest and detention of VOP journalists and NCA activists. Notably, Studio 7 (14/12) reported Harare police spokesperson Inspector Loveless Rupere feigning ignorance over the arrest of the NCA activists, while Saturday’s Mirror quoted him saying "reports" on the police raid of VOP’s offices "were news to him".

Only the private media reported government’s sudden release of the passports it had confiscated from newspaper publisher Trevor Ncube and MDC official Paul Themba Nyathi.

Studio 7 (14/12) and the Mirror (15/12) revealed that government only returned the passports after legal argument demonstrated there was no enabling law to give effect to the controversial Constitutional Amendment No.17, which government claims empowers it to deal with Zimbabweans who undermine the country’s "national interests".

But even as the authorities returned Ncube and Nyathi’s travel documents on the strength of this argument, Studio 7 reported immigration authorities confiscating Majongwe’s passport on his return from Nigeria.

Earlier, the station (12/12) quoted Deputy Minister of Information Bright Matonga justifying the seizures, saying, "it is not a right to have a passport, it is a privilege". But the Zimbabwe Independent (16/12) contested the minister’s explanation. The paper’s contributor, Misa’s Rashweat Mukundu, argued that while the government considered passports and identity cards as a "privilege, that through their benevolence they bestow upon lesser mortals", these documents amounted "to one’s birthright" that "neither political force nor law" should take away in the absence of one committing "serious criminal acts…"

The paper, like the Gazette, also queried the criteria government was using to compile a "hit-list" of individuals it claimed threatened "national interests". The papers argued that national interests were not defined in law so that Zimbabweans would know how to conduct themselves.

The private media recorded widespread international condemnation of government’s renewed crackdown from organisations that include the European Union, the International Press Institute, Reporters Without Borders, World Association of Newspapers, the Media Institute of Southern Africa and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

They reported this protest just as the Gazette and Studio 7 (15/12) reported a fresh government assault on the private media which took the form of Information Minister Tichaona Jokonya branding the independent media as "weapons of mass destruction", a development commentators said bore ill for future press freedom in the country. None of the official media reported this speech, delivered at the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe’s journalist awards ceremony.

In contrast ZTV (18/12; 8pm) and SFM (14/12; 7am, 1pm) featured Deputy Minister of Youth and Employment Creation, Saviour Kasukuwere, "welcoming the suggestion" at the ZANU PF conference of national service training for journalists.

They cited MIC chairman Mahoso supporting the idea, saying that training would be necessary for "cultural and ideological orientation" while Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) president, Mathew Takaona, called for caution, saying the decision should be preceded by an "all-stakeholders meeting".

The private media’s diversified stories on the subject were reflected in their sourcing pattern (Fig 3).

Fig 2 Voice distribution in the Private Press

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